Apples and Oranges

By: Tanya Taylor, PhD | May 25, 2006

As I was reading "6 ways to improve your diet at work" over at Diet-blog.com [I am going to start working in the next few weeks after all], the second tip was take fruits to work! I hope by now that everybody buys fruits weekly! And I hope that I didn't just hear somebody whispering that fruits are expensive, because when it comes to maintaining your health - I don't think $3.00 a week for a 5 pound bag of apples or oranges is too much - and you may need to read Save Money: Some Insurers Pay You to Get Healthy and Staying/Becoming Healthy Helps You Spend Less and Earn More from the folks over at Free Money Finance.

One medium orange has 70 calories, no fat, 28% of the RDA for fiber (7 grams), 14 grams of sugars and 130% of the RDA for vitamin C. I particularly love oranges and this is probably the fruit which I eat the most often. They are great as a healthy snack with easy, ready-made portion control - no need to make a 100 calorie pack for these! So juicy, so sweet, sometimes messy, but always filling. There are three different types, Navel, Valencia and Blood oranges, but let's not forget about the cousins, such as clementines, mandarins, tangelos, and tangerines. Hormel has quite an informative page all about oranges [link] which gives details on the different types, pictures and directions on how to peel oranges.

There are more varieties of apples than oranges. Unlike oranges, where I tend to think there is not much difference in the taste of the different types, the types of apples can vary widely in flavor. There is Golden Delicious, which is yellow, crisp, sweet, and good for cooking or eating; McIntosh, red and slightly tart; Granny Smith, green, crunchy, sweet/tart, great for eating or cooking; Red Delicious, which I think of as the big red apple; Rome Beauty, also a red apple, good for baking.

A medium apple has 80 calories, no fat, 20% of the RDA for fiber (5 grams), and 16 grams of sugars.